In Medias Res
by Random-Battlecry
Summary: The story of Clever Doctor and his companion, Frequently Unconscious Clara. A romance notably lacking in vibro cutters. (Or, an exploration of what landed them in danger from sand piranhas in the first place.) 12xClara, Whouffaldi fluff, sleep-kissing, Clara being carried whilst unconscious, oh those crazy kids.


A/N: I saw a few requests for fic exploring the desert scene at the beginning of 8x06. Aaaannd then this happened.

* * *

"How did we get here?"

One glare from underneath those mighty eyebrows.

"Oh," she said, letting her bound wrists fall into her lap with a rattle of the chains. "Right."

* * *

Did it start with her desire to go somewhere sunny? No. But _he_ would insist that it did, and she would have to point out to him that _he_ was the one who landed in her flat, flung open the door, and demanded that she bring some sun screen and join him posthaste.

"And a hat," he had added, as she curled up more comfortably on the couch and calmly sipped her tea. "Bring a hat. One of those big floppy Audrey Hepburn ones."

"Is this for the sake of practicality or because you've always wanted to see me in one?"

He murmured something about it obscuring her face which, frankly, could have been taken either way. She'd gotten used to his rudeness by now, though. And making him wait till she finished her tea was punishment enough, probably.

So she'd made him wait till she had finished her tea, and then disregarded entirely his instructions about both the sun screen and the hat and strolled on to the TARDIS with empty hands.

He was standing by the console, apparently not bothered in the least that he'd been waiting for more than ten minutes. Well, time machine, after all. No point being in a hurry. Instead, he fixed her with a grin that made her slightly uneasy, for the sheer predatory aspect of it. That narrow face, those sharp sharp teeth.

"Fancy somewhere sunny?" he said.

* * *

On the way to Altun Seventy, he filled her in a little on the Ormagricis and their interesting ways. She leaned against the console next to him, only half listening. He didn't realize this while he was talking, of course— if he had, he would have stopped talking and asked her sharply to pay attention. He didn't realize it until she ambushed him, both arms winding around his and clutching him to her. It wasn't a hug, but it was enough like a hug that he fell a half-step backwards in silent protest.

But she had her face pressed to his coat sleeve, above his elbow, and he could feel her smiling.

"How did we get here?" she said.

"Well," said the Doctor, grateful that she was focusing on philosophy rather than on any more displays of physical affection, "that's an interesting question, and it's been debated for millions of years across millions of civilizations. Most people look at time as just a logical progression of cause and effect, but—"

"I don't mean specifically here, Doctor."

"Oh." He was quiet for a moment. "What do you mean, then."

"Just— this. Me and you. Traveling. Seeing things I never could have imagined." She gave a little half shrug. "Just— how did I get so lucky, is what I want to know."

"Ah." He smoothed at a button on the console for a moment. "Well. You tell me, teach."

She held him tighter for just a moment, then let him go. When she stepped back, she was smiling.

"You ever get that feeling where you just want to hug the universe?"

"Can't say that I have," said the Doctor guardedly, in case this was an opening for another attack.

"Just," she shook her head, "just an overwhelming feeling of goodwill. And gratitude."

"Endorphins," offered the Doctor. Clara cocked her head at him.

"You reckon?"

He shrugged. "Seems likely."

"Well, I'll take it," said Clara decisively. "I like it, whatever it is. Tell me more about this beach we're going to, yeah?"

He hadn't the heart to set her straight, after that.

* * *

And here they were, somewhere sunny. At least he'd got the advertising right, if his tone had been somewhat misleading. She'd been thinking beach, maybe.

("Not a drop of water for miles!" the Doctor had proclaimed with a sort of misplaced pride, standing in the sand with his arms spread.)

Tropical paradise, maybe.

("The universe's foremost planet for mirage research!")

A hammock spread between two palm trees, swaying gently in the breeze. Maybe.

("A planet unique for having absolutely no native flora, and famous for the ferocity of its sand storms!")

To do him credit, his enthusiasm was communicable. Clara could feel the edges of her frown twitching traitorously. And after she'd tried so hard to hold on to it, too. He was focused on her, abruptly, with that total dedication and intensity of attention that he seemed to have only for her. It was a bit flattering, if unsettling. Flattering and unsettling was better than being flat and settled, she supposed.

"What are you thinking?"

A request for approbation? She let her smile show.

"I'm wishing I'd brought a hat after all."

His smile curved its sharp way through, and set his face alight.

* * *

So here they were somewhere sunny, and the hat would have been nice, and so would the sun screen, and what would be nicer was if the sun wasn't giving them a dim orange glow, and if the Doctor wasn't, apparently subconsciously, beginning to hum the Oompa Loompa's song from_ Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory_ under his breath.

"I am so gonna kill you," said Clara.

"Join the queue," says the Doctor, tartly.

* * *

They'd been trying to help. At least, Clara assumes they were trying to help. The TARDIS had been slow about translating, for some reason— something or other about the fact that their hosts communicated in rattling noises rather than words, the Doctor had rather unhelpfully supplied by way of explanation, before pulling a baby's rattle from his trouser pocket and brandishing it in her face— so she wasn't entirely sure what, exactly, they were trying to help with. Or if the Doctor had been helpful at all, really. It was a gamble with him, most of the time. His increasingly frustrated hand-and-arm and, eventually, whole-body gesticulation, rattle rattling away madly, did not seem to be making things better.

Their hosts were watching him with folded arms and furrowed brows; brows so deeply furrowed, in fact, that they obscured their chins, while above them their eyes were turning a worryingly dark purple. They may not have been the strangest aliens Clara had ever encountered on all her travel with the Doctor, but at the moment she would have been hard pressed to come up with anything odder.

Sensing that things were rapidly beginning to head south, she'd reached out and caught at the Doctor's arm with both hands. Through her teeth— she hoped it would pass for a smile— she said, "Doctor, what's going on?"

He put his hands down and looked at her for a moment, then gave one of those slightly exasperated sighs that meant he was about to explain something at length, and only forty percent of it would be strictly relevant. He said something intricate about a Sun Queen, and then something else complicated about a Queen of the Desert, and then he followed up this discussion of alien royalty with, "And now we've got between them, probably, so if we don't tread very carefully, Clara, if we're not very diplomatic, things could go south quite quickly."

"Well, you'd best give me this then," she said, and snatched the rattle from him in exasperation. She brandished it right back at him, right under his nose. She owed him one, after all. If he thought that having a rattle brandished at him unexpectedly was a pleasant experience, he had another think coming.

It was only a few minutes later, when the TARDIS translation circuit finally caught up, that she fully understood the expression on the alien host's face, and why the Doctor had let out a slight groan and covered his eyes.

"—and so's your mum," the TARDIS finished, in Clara's voice.

"That— was an accident," said Clara.

* * *

"Could happen to anyone, really," she said, later.

"Didn't, though, did it?" said the Doctor. "Happened to you."

"Oh, shut up. As if you've never accidentally said something horribly rude to someone."

"I haven't," said the Doctor promptly. "I'm always horribly rude on purpose. And look at us now, Clara. Baking in the sun like whelks on a rock."

"Yeah, but. You've got a plan, right?"

Which was when he decided to bring up the vibro cutters, which was just a mistake all around.

* * *

She still thought that it was pretty likely they would starve; or, rather, die of dehydration, no matter what he said to the contrary. He had distracted himself with the sand piranhas, though, and carried on to tell her that they were invented by a desert-dwelling race, distantly related to the Ormagricis, that had needed a way to eradicate the sand rats that had been eating their crops.

"Well, I say sand rats." He shifted on the dust. "More like four legged cobras, really. So you can understand how they thought they were trading up."

"Doctor—"

"Mind you, the sand piranhas themselves are not entirely discriminating when it comes to what they eat. The crops suffered all the same."

"Doctor."

"They've been known to strip a cow in three seconds. Although," he carried on, brow furrowing ferociously, "I still don't know how a cow ended up on Altun Seventy. Something about an accident with a cattle transporter and the herdsman refusing to ask for directions."

"_Doctor_," she said, and her voice this time was plaintive enough that he stopped talking and turned the Look on her. She'd learned this Look. He always got it just before he asked her, quite in earnest, if she was Okay. She wondered what he expected her to say to this, since most of the time when he asked if she was Okay, she was in fact in some form of mortal danger or other. Maybe "okay" meant something different to Time Lords. Like, "about to die, probably." If he ever turned this Look on her, this earnest Look, and said, "Are you about to die, probably?" she could unequivocally say, "Yes."

"What's happened? Are you okay?"

"Doctor." She swallowed. It was markedly more difficult than it had been an hour or so ago. "Do you have any escape plans that _don't_ involve the vibro cutters?"

* * *

She thought about his lack of plan later, sitting with the sand cuddling up around her thighs. The Doctor had been uncharacteristically silent for nearly ten minutes now. She rolled her head in his direction, trying to spit a wisp of her hair out of her mouth.

"What?" she said, crossly. "What's going on in that great big brain of yours? Please. Share with the class."

He'd been staring fixedly at her handcuffs for quite a while, but this stirred him slightly, and he lifted his head.

"Of human bondage," he said.

Clara blinked at him. "What?"

"No, no, never mind. It wasn't important."

This was probably true. She watched him shift around for a moment, looking as awkward and uncomfortable with himself as an ungainly teenager. He doubled his knees up and wriggled his back against the post.

"Got an itch?"

"That I can't quite scratch," he murmured half-heartedly. His eyes were again on her bound wrists, and then they were wide, only for a second, and he went quite still and muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like, "Bugger."

"What?" demanded Clara.

"Oh. Nothing."

"What? It can't possibly be worse than the situation we're in now."

"It— it isn't."

She rolled her eyes. "Just tell me, Doctor."

He ignored her, casting his eyes upwards instead at the twin suns. "How long d'you reckon we've got before they set?" he asked.

"If you're waiting for cover of darkness to make your big escape, I heartily encourage you to reconsider."

"Just curious. Clara." He fixed his eyes on her with that sudden intensity that always made her hyper-aware of her own breathing. "Clara, Clara, Clara."

"Doctor Doctor Doctor."

He wriggled a little, again, and then settled back. "Might as well catch a bit of a kip."

She boggled at him. "You cannot be serious."

"I'm always serious about a nap. It's the only form of rest I ever bother with. I'm a master at naps. You might call me the Nap Master."

"Doctor!"

But he was ignoring her again. She settled in for a long, silent fume.

Halfway through it, she fell asleep.

* * *

Later, when she remembered, she would blame the dreams on the heat of the suns. On the fear of dying lightyears away from her home and her family, of losing everything she loved, of some rubbish substitute taking over her class and undoing all her hard work with the little menaces to society. Because the dreams were something else, something feral and wild, and they lived in her head without paying rent. Fingers laced through hers— her wrists were still bound— and his palms were cool. She knew who he was. She thought she might even know his name.

His voice was low and full of something like water, like a waterfall behind cloth. His voice was difficult to describe. But she knew it.

"Remember to breathe," he said.

"That'll be difficult," she said, because he was kissing her ardently, how could anyone breathe when they were being so thoroughly snogged, and she was flying, she was levitating through the air— well, maybe he was picking her up, that was even more romantic. He was picking her up, and he was flying, they were maybe both flying, perhaps. She put her arms around his neck, for stability, for support, but he was uncertain and slippery beneath her, and she couldn't hold on. Still, his arms were around her and he held her like a rock, like a cradle, like the bosom of the earth.

"Heatstroke, probably," he murmured on her mouth.

"There doesn't always have to be a reason, Doctor," said Clara. "Sometimes, it just is."

* * *

She woke up with sand in her mouth. Well, to be perfectly honest, she woke up with sand everywhere. But the hum in her dreams had become the hum of the TARDIS, warm and welcoming, and the sight of the Doctor smiling down at her— the tightness around his eyes all relaxed, now, so pleased to see her awake— was enough to prove that this wasn't a mirage.

He'd put her in the leather armchair. It was more comfortable than it looked. She let a sigh escape her, let her body sink further into the contures of the chair, for a moment, just for a moment, then sat bolt upright.

"Doctor!"

"Clara," he said, steadily.

"How?" She looked about herself, patted herself down. No chains. Just sunburn. "How did we get here?"

"Easily. I waited for cover of darkness and made my escape. Thanks to you. I mean, it was you who gave me the idea."

"No— no— how did we get here? We were chained up."

"Ah. Were. Past being the relevant tense. Clearly, we're not." He waved a hand at both of them by way of demonstration.

She narrowed her eyes at him.

"You're not going to explain this one to me, are you?"

"What's to explain? I did a clever thing. You were asleep, so you couldn't appreciate it, but I did it anyway. I did a clever thing, I picked you up, I carried you into the TARDIS, and here we are. No more Clara, Queen of the Desert."

"We are not calling me that."

"I just said _no more_. And that was it. No muss, no fuss, just Clever Doctor and his companion, Frequently Unconscious Clara. Good news is, you're lighter than you look. Relatively easy to carry. On the whole, the only way you could have come in more convenient packaging is if you had a handle, and maybe some operating instructions."

"Doctor." She did her best to make her voice a warning, but he carried on anyway.

"Do not operate while under the influence of alcohol. If product malfunctions, apply tea and morning chat programs."

"_Doctor!_"

He put his palms up. "Alright! Alright!"

But she had sprung up from the depths of the comfy chair, and was stumbling down the steps towards the console, pushing her hair out of her eyes.

"I've got a date," she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth. "I can't believe, I nearly forgot. Doctor, you've got to get me back, I've been late for the last three and he'll never let me live it down."

The Doctor paused, hand on a lever, and regarded her seriously.

"You want to go just like that," he said.

Clara was trying to get her hair in some semblance of order.

"Well, I'm gonna have to, aren't I? Unless you can get me back in time for a shower. Can you get me back for a shower? I'll love you forever."

"It isn't that."

"It _is _that," Clara insisted. "It really is. I've got sand in places you can't even— I've got sand everywhere."

"It isn't _just_ that," said the Doctor. But he let it go, and Clara didn't pursue it. If she insisted on going on a date looking like an escaped Oompa Loompa, who was he to question the paths of human romance?

He may have been smiling as he asked the TARDIS to take them home, but only a little.

* * *

_She was sleeping. At last. It was faking her out with his own nap that had done it. Nothing quite so catching as a kip in the sun. The Doctor congratulated himself busily as he set to working the vibro cutters out of his trouser pocket— the vibro cutters he'd nicked from Clara's jacket when he'd picked her up in her flat, and then promptly forgotten about._

_Just as well she'd finally fallen asleep and let him work in peace. If she found out, he'd never live this one down._

_She was soft and warm and easier to lift than he had expected. Clara had always reminded him of the TARDIS, in that she seemed to have her own gravity, to exert her own pull on things. The true weight of her, body and soul, could have fractured the lines of reality. She must have been making things easy for him, though. She even put her arms around his neck as he hefted her closer, and let out a little sigh, and oh, well, that was unexpected._

_"Heatstroke, probably," he said onto her mouth. It wasn't unpleasant— quite the contrary— but it was unusual. And there was a value in the unusual, just for sheer novelty of it. There was a value in Clara's slight solid weigh in his arms, and a value to her mouth moving languidly on his as he walked, and there was even, he thought, a value to the TARDIS being quite a long ways away, all evidence to the contrary. The suns beat down. Off in the distance, the lonely squeal of a sand piranha looking for a mate. Or a meal. Probably a meal._

_So maybe this adventure didn't quite pan out the way he'd anticipated, and maybe they'd both ended up a color of orange that was not found in nature. And maybe he'd let the mystery of how they escaped remain a mystery until the end of time._

_On balance, though, he thought it had gone quite well._


End file.
